Montana Democratic Party holds a press conference regarding healthcare in rural areas

Red Lodge, Montana – A press conference was held by Montana Democratic Party members outside the Beartooth Billings Clinic in reaction to a statement made by Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy.

The organization feels that Sheehy’s position advocating for fully privatized healthcare would harm rural communities by denying them access to Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and rural hospitals.

“Rural hospitals rely on state and federal money to serve the rural population. We are not wealthy. We are predominantly older. And we rely on local facilities for our health needs,” said Betsy Scanlin, an attendee and Red Lodge native.

“We rely on local facilities for our health needs. This is an incredibly important part of our community.

Tim Sheehy released the following statement at the Wednesday press conference.

“Let’s be clear here: this was a political stunt orchestrated by the Montana Democrats to push a false partisan narrative because they are desperate to save Jon Tester’s political career and know he’s going to lose in 2024.
Tim has made clear that our healthcare system is broken.
Year after year, Montanans face higher and higher premiums, and we’ve lost access to doctors and health care plans we were told we could keep.
The truth is, Jon Tester and the entire Democrat Party broke our health care system.
Tim Sheehy is going to fight for every Montana family for common sense solutions like greater price transparency and shopping for services in our healthcare system to ensure more competition to lower costs.
Further, Tim believes we need to reward outcomes and innovation, improve access to care in our rural communities, and above all, he will always protect Montanans with pre-existing conditions.”